Archive for August, 2010
Seems like every day I see another article talking about the “Future of Search”. In every article “Search” refers almost exclusively to the Reader (you and me) and how we use Search. Nearly everything anyone has to say about Search seems to always relate back to the reader:
- What am I looking for?
- Did I find it or not?
- Was it presented to me in a unique and compelling way?
- Is my location taken into account?
- My social network taken into account?
- Images? Video? Audio? Were they also available?
- How about maps? Or discount coupons?
- Did the Search learn from my prior searches or click behavior?
- Is anything going to unseat Google as the dominant search engine?
The problem is that this Reader-centric equation is only half of what Search really is. In a literal sea of websites that are NOT Google, Bing, Yahoo!, eBay, or YouTube there is incredible value in Search that appeals to the Publishers of those millions of websites.
Think about it from a Publisher point of view. Search is a powerful insight into the intent of an audience of readers. In fact, site search on all of these millions of websites is largely an afterthought. That’s crazy when you think that a little search box on your site is the place where your readers assert direct and explicit intent against your content. Search is perhaps the most interactive and data-rich portion of your site and it’s also one of the most overlooked.
- What are my Readers looking for?
- What are they finding? What are they not finding?
- Are they clicking on my site content, my Twitter content? My other sites?
- Do they engage with intent on my site? Or simply read and exit?
- Do they see and interact with results from my social media?
- Do they gravitate to other media content like photos, videos, audio?
- Do I show them related content from my network of sites? And if so, how often do they click through to those sites?
The points above illustrate incredible Publisher-centric information captured from the intent of your audience. The amazing part? Lijit is the only company tackling this Publisher-side value equation with Search. We do it for free, with easy customization, with no restrictive obligations, and no exclusive contracts. We focus 100% on Publisher-side value that helps these Publishers engage and better understand their audience of readers. We feed this data back to our Publishers through real-time actionable analytics. Oh… and if our Publishers want us to make them more money, we do that too; with no restrictive obligations, and no exclusive contracts. Does it get any better than that?
Tags: employee guest post, industry, Lijit publishers | View Comments
Congratulations to Best Blogs of 2010 via TIME
Aug 30th
by Grace Boyle in Community, Lijit publishers
We love bloggers. We love bloggers and our publishers even more.
Recently, TIME release Best Blogs of 2010 and we want to highlight and congratulate every blogger on the list, as well as the Lijit publishers who made the list, as well.
BEST BLOGS:
- Cake Wrecks: When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.
- Everything Everywhere: Around the world travel blog
FailBlog made the list (as an Overrated Blog) – but we collectively and strongly disagree. FailBlog is one of our favorite sites – they receive a daily visit from everyone in the Lijit office. You can always guarantee a laugh and the best part is that it’s all real – maybe it makes us feel better? Either way, we’re giving FailBlog a Best Blogs of 2010 list, right at the top. They’re worth featuring, without a doubt.
You can read the rest of the list here.
Congratulations and high-fives to all the winners!
Ouch.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting sin city itself, Las Vegas, for the first time in my young life. However, I wasn’t there to blow through my life savings ala Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation,” or to tie the knot with the, uh, “exotic dancer” I met just hours prior. No, my intentions were elsewhere. My eyes and ear and rental car were pointed about 25 miles north of the Vegas strip to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was there, among the gloriously desolated desert I was to witness a one-of-a-kind car racing event: After Dark – Round 5 of the Formula Drift series of competition.
What’s drifting, you ask? Well if you haven’t seen the second installment of the Fast and the Furious, here’s a little background direct from Wikipedia:
Drifting refers to a driving technique and to a motorsport where the driver intentionally over steers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while maintaining vehicle control and a high exit speed. A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle prior to the corne apex, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa), and the driver is controlling these factors. As a motor sport, professional drifting competitions are held worldwide.
Hope that clears things up. At any rate, my purpose was to watch these immensely beefed-up cars careen around cones at exponentially high speeds, shooting clouds of tire smoke into the 112 degree desert sky and showering spectators in bits of rubber. Aside from the tents of the various event sponsors, including MotorMavens.com, on of Lijit’s premier publishers, there was little I could do to escape the heat. Read: I was a sweaty mess close to 100% of the time. But what a perfect catalyst to help make said bits of tire stick to my skin, no?
So long, tires.
The event was anything but lackluster. I had the chance to meet the drivers, including Rhys Millen (of the Rod Millen family), Chris Forsberg, Tyler McQuarrie, who took home the gold, and the riotous, Mad Mike Whiddett driving the beastly Mazda RX-8 sponsored by Team Need For Speed and closely tied to a personal favorite site of mine, Speedhunters.com. Further than the drives, I had the pleasure to actually meet, face-to-face, with the heads of Team Need for Speed/Speedhunters and their acclaimed videographer, Will Roegge and photographer, Linhbergh. And isn’t it always better to put a face to a name? I got to do just that, too, when I shook the hand of Antonio, one of the masterminds behind the aforementioned, Motor Mavens.
Hopping from tent to tent, checking out the latest products from leaders in the industry, pounding NOS energy drinks (probably downed close to 4 gallons in two days), handing out Lijit shirts, collecting loads of free swag, I didn’t stop moving from the times the gates opened at 4PM until they closed at around 1:30AM each of the two days. Although I only got to check out the casino in the Golden Nugget, the hotel I called home for the weekend, I am not a big gambler and that side of Vegas wasn’t alluring to me. I did pull the lever on one $1 slot machine. Then I called it a day.
The flags flying high over the Motor Mavens booth.
A rollercoaster weekend of networking, burning rubber, 112 dry heat, over-air conditioned rooms, carnival-style food, meeting some of the best and brightest in the drifting world, rental car radio and my phone dying when I really, REALLY didn’t need it to saw me returning to Denver exhausted, slightly more broke, two lungs filled with tire smoke, and feeling accomplished. Will I be back next year? Heck yes! Will I be trying to attend more local Colorado-based automotive events? YOu better believe it. So, if you see me, feel free to say hey. I may even have a bag of shirts with me if you are lucky.
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, publisher spotlight | View Comments
We’re all about supporting local. We’ve worked with The BlogFrog before by featuring the online Boulder company that allows bloggers to create instant community on their blogs, by letting readers connect, interact and share content. BlogFrog is like attaching a social network to your blog.
Well, we’re featuring them again because they just launched their Frugal Living Community!
To get the community going, The BlogFrog launched The Dream Team (many of which, are also using Lijit’s custom search, stats and advertising – see the crossover?)
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, tech | View Comments